Zesty Broccoli, Lentils & Quinoa

I originally thought I’d write this up as a side dish or a warm salad recipe. Except when I made it, I realized it was really an awesome main course too. So you get to choose what you want to serve this as.

In this recipe I used a salad dressing called Tessemae’s All Natural Zesty Ranch. This is a natural salad dressing that I sampled then bought when we were in Tampa, FL at Whole Foods Market. It’s got quite a kick to it and I love it. I haven’t seen it around Saskatoon at all and their website looks like it’s not even available all over the US either. According to their website you can order online and it appears that they do ship to Canada, so that’s cool.

What I love about this stuff is they use simple ingredients and every single one of their products are gluten-free, sugar-free, hand-crafted and vegan. The few that I sampled all tasted amazing.

I didn’t want to post this recipe with just a store-bought ranch dressing that wasn’t widely available so I suggest making your own zesty ranch dressing using my dry ranch mix. Prepare the dressing following the instructions for a vinaigrette. My dressing isn’t the same as Tessemae’s Zesty Ranch but it does the trick quite nicely for this dish. I’d serve either version for guests and feel comfortable that they’d both be hits.

You don’t have to roast the broccoli but I find that it gives a nice caramelized and nutty taste to the broccoli. You just have to roast it for about 20 minutes at 375ºF. You can roast frozen broccoli too if fresh is expensive. If you’d rather not turn your oven on to roast broccoli, feel free to lightly steam it (with still a bit of firmness) and use it in this recipe. It’ll still taste good.

I used a can of lentils that I rinsed. There’s salt in canned lentils which I dislike. If I had more time when I was making this I would have cooked my own lentils. You’ll want the equivalent to 2 cups of cooked lentils, whether you cook your own or use canned.

To make 4 cups worth of cooked quinoa you’ll use 2 cups water or vegetable stock and 1 cup dry quinoa. Not sure how to cook quinoa? Check out my simple how-to video below.

Reader Interactions

Comments

We thought this recipe was great. We doubled the recipe & used Wegweb’s Best Ranch Dressing recipe:
1 cup vegan mayonnaise or sour cream (I use Vegenaise or Tofutti)
2 teaspoons parsley
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
dash dill weed
black pepper, to taste
Whisk all the ingredients together and chill in the fridge until very cold, then serve.
We doubled the Ranch dressing – we like it more creamy.
We are going to add mushrooms next time also.
Thanks for a great meal!